The informal knowledge paradox
One of the issues that concentrate much interest as part of the overall growing interest around knowledge management, is the elusive yet highly regarded pool of informal knowledge that exists in any organization. Researches done in major US corporates, such as Ford, Intel and Motorola, showed that 70% of the knowledge in these organizations is informal knowledge, that is knowledge that is passed and maintained trough casual e-mail correspondences and water cooler conversations. This fact shadows a strong doubt over the sensibility of investing so much time and effort in formal training, technical documentation libraries and other (now days, mostly electronic) means for formal knowledge management and transfer. Corporate managements, of course, do not like this state of things. They would rather see either more knowledge maintained and transfered in a controlled and manageable manner, or at least better ability to tap into the process of informal knowledge transfer, assuming that in this way they can increase its benefits to the organization. Traditional KM tools tackle this issue by using one or both of these means: *forcing individuals within the organization to document actions, decisions and reasoning in some formal manner, converting them into a searchable documents library *Actually tapping into more casual means of communication (for example by recording telephone conversations), and using data-mining techniques to extract formal knowledge from them. Both these strategies (as well as most combinations of them) mostly fail to yield satisfying results, especially comparing to the large amount of money, time and other resources invested in putting them to work. There are several known reasons for that, with the most outstanding one being lack of cooperation in behalf of the intended users. While the fact that people do not like to share knowledge in a formal manner is well known, the main reason for this is, IMO, very often overlooked. In other words, while all the known "excuses" for not sharing knowledge ("Job security", "Overhead", etc.,) are in many cases what people say, and maybe even really think, to be the reasons for their lack of corporation, the real reason, I propose, stems from an uncontentious yet perfectly valid objection. Human beings are social creatures, and as such, we are equipped with some natural instincts which guide us in complex situations that require cooperation with others. Based on these instincts, and usually on our life experience as well, we know that complex problems seldom have a "by the book" solution. A certain amount of informal measures, such as trial and error, creative thinking, etc., is always required in these cases. This is especially so when we encounter new or unexpected situations. In such cases, we often use analogies, drown from our experience in more familiar situations, to try and figure out what to do. The thing is that if everyone in a group that tackles such a situation think and act the same, the outcome may be ineffective or even risky because of inaccuracy of the analogies used, relative to the real situation. This phenomenon, known as "group thinking", is much less likely to happen if informal, and thus more fuzzy and diverse knowledge is used. Knowing this, based on our experience and our social instincts, is the real cause for our objection to knowledge formalization. We understand that while formalizing knowledge reduces its complexity, it reduces even more the level of complexity of the problems it can help solving. This is why, in what may seem like a paradox, the more complex a problem is, the more people will be reluctant to share the knowledge required for handling it in a formal manner. On the other hand, sharing knowledge in a totally informal and unsolicited manner is not a very good idea either, and this is why: If you walk on the street, and someone asks you for directions, you will probably not ask him or her why they are asking (doing so might even be considered rude). Still, when a colleague at work or a customer or anyone in the context of area-of-expertise knowledge transfer will ask you to advise them, you will often find yourself having to ask for some reasoning and background. This is because, being aware of the complexity of the matter, you understand that a correct answer depends on the context in which the question was asked. Thus, asking "why do you want to know?" is an attempt to disambiguate the original question asked, but then again, doing so might very well just add more ambiguity. The original asker may not know what kind and extent of background is needed, which many times leads to a lengthly conversation about... ah... what where we talking about? (you get the point, don't you?) So these are the two sides of the dilemma - Too much formalization leads to "group thinking" and reduces the level of complexity of problems that our knowledge can help solving, while too little formalization will lead to ambiguities and loss of time in the attempts to sort them out. Both extremes increase complexity, which means that the challenge for a knowledge management system in this aspect is to find the proper balance of formality vs casualness that will minimize complexity. Read more about how Koi handles the informal knowledge paradox * Knowledge crystallization - is the process trough which, casual knowledge is organized into the spatial representation of knowledge that Koi is based upon. * Seamless cooperation - explains about how Koi applications can be designed in a way that will help reducing the "social friction" effects that cause people to refrain from sharing knowledge Backlinks * The philosophy behind Koi * Koi project main page Category:Koi